Railway-frog.



PATENTED JUNE 13, 1905.

A. A. STROM.

RAILWAY FROG.

YM m UNITED STATES Patented June 13, 1905.

PATENT OFFICE.

AXEL A. STROM, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR TO PETTIBONE, MULLIKEN t COMPANY, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, A CORPORATION OF ILLINOIS.

I RAILWAY-FROG.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 792,364, dated June 13, 1905. Application filed April 7, 1905. Serial No. 254,295.

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, AXEL A. STRoM, a citi- Zen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented a new and useful Railway-Frog, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to an improvement in the class of railway-frogs in which inserts of relatively hard metal are provided to protect the wing-rails against rapid wear from the shock of the wheel-treads in moving across the iiangeway from the frog-point to the rails, thereby to increase the durability of the frog by causing the impact of the wheel-treads to be received on the hard-metal inserts.

The hard steel used for the inserts referred to is very expensive compared with the metal composing the body of the frog, and as khitherto introduced into the frog structure the large amount of this relatively expensive metal required to be used has rendered the cost of manufacturing the frog accordingly great. Manganese steel is the hard metal more commonly employed, and I prefer to use the same for embodying my improvement, though my invention is not limited to the use of that particular variety of hard metal.

My object is to provide a novel construction of the hard-metal-insert embodiment in a railway-frog to attain as one advantage saving in the amount required to be used of the hard metal and consequent reduction in the expense of manufacturing the frog and as another advantage safety against accident from fracture of the insert under the impact strains to which the enormous weights of the modern large 1ocomotives subject it, the hard metal being more or less frangible. These and other objects are accomplished by the construction hereinafter described, and illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in Which- Figure 1 is a plan view of a railway-frog embodying my invention, and Fig. 2 an enlarged section taken at the line 2 on Fig. 1 and viewed in the direction of the arrow.

A and B are the rails, which terminate in the frog-point C, andD E are the wing-rails, spaced from the point by the filling-blocks a which may be formed of cheap cast orwrought iron. The outer side of the head of each wing-rail is cut away from a point, as ai, adjacent to the frog-point to a point, as beyond the same to form a recess CZ in that side of the head, which may have a straight intermediate section and beveled end sections, as shown. Into each recess d is fitted a correspondingly shaped bar F, of manganese steel, widened toward its base to expand it to the side of the neck e of the respective wingrail and seating at its base on the flange f of said wing-rail. Each insert F is confined in place by any suitable band, the preferred form of which is that of a reinforcing-rail Gr, provided with a longitudinal recess al on the inner side of its head like and coinciding with the respective recess l and conforming to the Vouter side of the insert therein, the outer expanded portion of which meets the inner' side of the neck g of the respective reinforcingrail, on the flange L of which, shown as overlapping the adjacent wing-rail flange, the insert seats at its base. The parts of the frog thus described are fastened together, as by bolts, in the manner represented or otherwise. The inserts are thus confined in pockets provided on the outer sides of the wing-rails, wherein they remain under confinement and practically intact even though fractured by the impact strains to which they are subjected, since the broken parts are retained in place by the pocket-like confining means.

Where the hard-metal insert has, as hitherto, been provided at the inner side of each Wingrail between the latter and the frog-point, it has constituted the ller also, necessitating making the latter of the more expensive metal and leaving it Without protection against disorganization from fracture. By providing the insert at the outer side of the Wing-rail, according to my invention, the amount of metal for forming it is not only very much less, but it may be effectively held in case of fracture against dismemberment of the broken parts, and thereby avoids tendency to accident as the result of such fracture.

It will be noted that the inner side of the head c' of each wing-rail is reduced in width between the points y and y', and its flange f is sinnilarlj7 reduced along the inner side thereof. This feature of my improvement, which, however, is not an essential one, brings the inserts F closer to the frog-point and, moreover, enables the fillers a and Yto be made that much narrower, with the advantage of saving in the metal of which the fillers are composed.

Obviously the inserts may be provided by pouring the metal composing them while in a molten condition through the recesses d CZ' and allowing it to harden to form the bar F. Moreover, it is not necessary in all frogs to provide the inserts on both sides of the frogpoint. In a springI rail-frog particularly and also in a frog of the variety herein shown and described when the travel on one wing-rail is comparatively light one wing-rail only need be provided with the hard-metal insert in accordance with my improvement.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. In a railway-frog, the combination with a wing-rail of a hard-metal bar secured to the outer side of said wing-rail adjacent to the frog-point, for the purpose set forth.

2. In a railway-frog, the combination with the Wing-rails of inserts composed of manganese-steel bars set into the outer side of said wing-rails adjacent to the frog-point, for the purpose set forth.

3. In a railway-frog, a hard-metal insert confined in a pocket at the outer side of a wingrail adjacent to the frog-point, for the purpose set forth.

4. A railway-frog having` a recess formedin the outer side of a wing-rail head adjacent to the frog-point, and a hard-metal insert con fined in said recess, for the purpose set forth.

5. A railway-frog having formed in theI outer side of a wing-rail head, adjacent to the frog-point, a recess composed of a straight inmassa termediate section and beveled ends, and a` hard-metal insert tting and confined in said recess, for the purpose set forth.

6. A railway-frog having formed in the outer side of a wing-rail head, adjacent to the frog-point, a longitudinal recess, a hard-metal insert fitting said recess, and a band secured to the outer side of said wing-rail, confining Asaid insert in place, for the purpose set forth.

7. A railwa 7-frog having formed in the outer side of a wing-rail head, adjacent to the frog-point,a longitudinal recess,a reinforcingrail extending along the outer side of said wing-rail and provided on its inner side with a'longitudinal recess coinciding with the wingrail recess, and a hard-metal insert confined in said recess, for the purpose set forth.

8. A railway-frog having formed in the outer side of a wing-rail head, adjacent to the frog-point, a longitudinal recess, reinforcingrails extending along the outer sides of said wing-rails and provided on their inner sides with longitudinal recesses coinciding with the wing-rail recesses, and hard-metal inserts conned in said recesses and expanded below the heads of the rails toward their `necks and seating on their adjacent anges, for the purpose set forth.

9. A railway-froghavingthehead and iange of a wing-rail reduced in width along its side adjacent to the frog-point, and a pocket in the outer side of said wing-rail head with a hardmetal insert confined in said pocket, for the purpose set forth.

10. A railway-frog having the heads and anges of the wing-rails reduced in width along their sides adjacent to the frog-point, recesses lin theouter sides of the wing-rails, hard-metal inserts fitting in said recesses, and means confining said inserts in said recesses, for the purpose set forth.

AXEL A. STRGM.

In presence of L. HEIsLAR, J. H. LANDES. 

